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Memphis, Tennessee
February 16-25, 2007
Regions Morgan Keegan Championships And Cellular South Cup - Memphis 2007
Mirjana Lucic's Memphis Comeback Cut Short
Reporting From Onsite In Memphis, Tennessee
By Tripp Mateschitz, Lawn Tennis Correspondent, Posted: Saturday, February 17, 2007 5:29pm CST USA
Q2: M. Oudin def. M. Lucic 6-4, 3-6, 6-2
Mirjana Lucic
MEMPHIS--(lawntennismag.com) At the Cellular South Cup in today's qualifying round two, Mirjana Lucic of Croatia lost to Nathalie Grandin in a mix of errors from Lucic and smart play from Grandin 6-4, 3-6, 6-2 in one hour and 47 minutes.
Two main factors to report today that contributed to Mirjana's loss. Grandin's ability to stay in the points was a major factor as well as Lucic's own impatience to stay in them. Yesterday we saw Lucic's hit or miss power baseline game "on," whereas today her game went "off" at several times throughout the match, most notibly at its end.

Grandin's main strategy to prolong the points for as long as possible and wait for the Lucic error worked to a tee in set one as Lucic soon found herself down 6-4 after several impatient errors. In set two Mirjana's high risk shots mostly went inside the lines or kissed them. A few aces, backhand and forehand winners later, Lucic had taken set two 6-3.

In set three Grandin became even more determined to try and force more Lucic errors and unleashed yet more heavy left-handed topsin. More netted or long groundstrokes from Lucic left her down 0-3. Standing on the baseline to power her strokes, Lucic kept the ball in play long enough to win the next two games to pull to 2-3.

Grandin at this point began slicing her forehand and backhand almost exclusively to try and draw errors from Lucic. Lucic's attempts to overpower the slices resulted in too many errors for her to overcome as she hit one final forehand crosscourt long to lose the match.

Mirjana immediately after the match appeared dissapointed but soon afterwards her smile returned as all in all a match won yesterday after almost two years off the WTA Tour could be counted as a minor success. I asked Lucic if she planned to play more tournaments and she replied, "I hope so. That's the plan."


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